Hall of Fame Inductees

Ryan Ball

By CHRIS LARICK

Few athletes have to face the indignity of an 0-21 won-lost record in any sport.

Fewer still become national champions.

Rarest of all, however, are those who go to both of those extremes during their careers.

Meet Ryan Ball, who retired from competitive artistic roller skating after winning a national championship at the age of 13.

A scant four years later Ball found himself on the court for Edgewood during the 1992-93 season, when the Warriors suffered through that winless year.

Even that cloud had a silver lining, however. The next year Ball, who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on Apr. 3, became the Player of the Year.

"I started playing basketball late,” Ball said. "It was the summer going into seventh grade when my aunt and uncle called and asked if I would be interested in attending the Rocky River High School basketball camp. I had recently retired from competitive artistic roller skating and was looking for a new hobby.”

Ball, a 1994 Edgewood graduate, credits attending basketball camps, especially the College of Wooster basketball camp (which he attended from eighth grade through high school), for much of his early fundamental development as a player. He began playing organized ball in the seventh grade under coaches Sam Esposito and Jerry Dufour.

“(Wooster) head coach Steve Moore and his staff did a great job with stations to develop all parts of the game,” Ball said.

"My most influential coach was (Edgewood’s) Dick Heath. Coach Heath took me under his wing and worked with me on the court and off. Coach Heath was my coach for my sophomore and junior years.

“I was sad to see him not brought back for my senior year after struggling through a 0-21 junior season. My senior season I was coached by fellow HOF member Jon Hall. We had a great relationship and I was able to learn and develop under his leadership."

In comparing the two coaches, Ball said, "Coach Heath was a fiery, intense coach who made sure conditioning was not a reason for us to lose. I remember my sophomore year after losing a game (that we shouldn’t have lost on the road) getting off the bus and having to go in the gym to do sprints. Coach Heath took the time to be a mentor with me to make me a better person off the court as well as being a better player. Coach Hall pushed all of us to play to our strengths and play as a team. He was not as intense as Coach Heath but he was able to lead us to the most improved team in the conference on his way to Coach of the Year honors."

Ball had moved up to the varsity as a sophomore. At 5-foot-9 (possibly only 5-7 in high school), his natural position was guard, though he lays claim to playing many positions during his career, including jumping center. His teammates his sophomore year included Greg Green, Jim Lamson, Steve Garber, Chip Mauer, Alex Vogt and Kevin Andrejack.

"That was a great year,” he said. "I don’t remember the record, but I remember the games being sold out when the JV game started. One of the things I remember and thought was so cool was having my sister, Katrina (Ball) Niemi, as one of the cheerleaders. It was the first time we had the chance to be part of the same team, since I was younger than she was."

"My junior year was a struggle. We had a young team and struggled through 0-21. The team consisted of Don Palm, Ryan Watts, Joe Lapham, Chris Craft, Mike Lozada, Shane Kendall, Todd Scafuro, Steve Green, Jeff Williams, Cory McCollum and the only senior was Brian McConnel. Our senior year was a better year. We ended 12-10, fourth in the NEC, and were the most improved team in the conference.”

The game Ball remembers the most occurred during his senior year in a game at Harvey.

"I had had my car privileges taken away when my dad grounded me because I was being too fancy and blew a layup in the game before,” Ball said. "I started the game off 0-5 with three air balls in the first quarter.

"I heard the chants of ‘overrated,' which I heard whenever we were on the road. Coach Hall said between quarters to keep taking your shots because they will fall. From the start of the second quarter to the end of the game I ended up with 40 points. I remember their fans chanting 'Shoot it' every time I touched it instead of ‘overrated.' My teammates told my parents to take my driving privileges away more often so I would keep playing like I did."

During his senior year at Edgewood, Ball scored 21.5 points per game and won several honors, including Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County Player of the Year, WKKY Player of the Year, NEC Co-Player of the Year (sharing with Harvey’s Emery Martin), All-Northeast Lakes District first team and All-Ohio Division II special mention.

After high school Ball went on to play basketball for Columbus State Community College his freshman year, where he started and led the conference with 10.6 assists per game. He moved on to Butler County Community College as a sophomore.

While at Butler, he averaged 21.9 points per game, was first-team all-conference and all-region and was nominated as an all-star.

He transferred to Point Park College in Pittsburgh for his junior and senior years. In his junior year, Point Park lost to St. Vincent in the conference finals and in the first round his senior year. His senior year he placed second in NAIA Division I in three-point shooting percentage.

“A few years after college I played in the ABA in 2006 and 2007,” Ball said, “first for the Canton Aviators and then the Pittsburgh Xplosion. In ’07 I was selected for the All-Star game in Fort Lauderdale. I took second in the dunk contest."

At Point Park, he studied psychology and is currently studying criminal justice, homeland security and counterterrorism at Herzing University (online). He graduated with a 4.0 GPA and was asked to give the commencement speech. He was also nominated by the chairman of the Criminal Justice department as Student of the Year.

After college, Ball worked as a recreation specialist at Lake Erie Correctional Institution. He provided inmates with events and recreational opportunities and served as a mentor. He later attended the Police Academy at MTC Basic Police Academy in Niles, Ohio, leading to roles at Geneva-on-the-Lake Police Department and then Cleveland Clinic Police Department, where he is now a sergeant overseeing 27 officers and two corporals.

“It is different from a traditional police department because we handle protection details for kings and queens from all over the world and still handle calls for service in the surrounding areas,” he said. “It’s a challenge but I love my job.”

Ball married Kathryn (Sefcek) Ball four years ago. They enjoy traveling and playing golf together and were married in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.

“I think it’s a much harder game than basketball. It’s so mental! I enjoy it and it’s something that Kathryn and I do together,” he said. “I will enter open tournaments when my instructor says I’m ready.”

Ball remains grateful to his parents, Gary and Vicky Ball, and his grandmother Mary Pandora for their unwavering support. He also credits teammates Dan Coxon, Mike Pape, Ted Johnson and longtime physical therapist Dr. William A. Seeds and his team at All-Star Physical Therapy for his athletic longevity and success.

Tom Carr

By CHRIS LARICK

When Tom Carr first began his officiating career, he quickly discovered that determining basketball rules was not an exact science.

“It’s a fine line,” Carr said of the decisions a basketball official has to make many times a game. “If you miss (a call), you miss it. You have to get past that; you have to deal with it.”

It is largely for his 31 years of officiating basketball that the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation chose him for its Hall of Fame as a contributor, though Carr has coaching credentials in his Ashtabula County portfolio as well.

Carr had never even heard of Ashtabula when job-hunting after a stint in the U.S. Army.

“I got married (to Ann) in 1971,” Carr said. “We were sitting around my wife’s parents’ table in Newcastle (Pa.) looking at a placement bulletin. I saw a social studies position, which is what I had my degree in, with an assistant basketball and football coach (position).

“I had to look up Ashtabula on the map. I had never heard of it. I came up here in July and interviewed for it.”

Ashtabula wanted Carr as an assistant for Bob Walters in basketball and Wash Lyons in football. The main problem was that Carr had no experience whatever with football, not even playing it. But he got the job anyway, assisted Lyons for a year, and Walters for eight, one as freshman coach and the other seven as junior varsity coach.

“I didn’t know the game of football at all,” Carr said. “I freely admitted that to them.”

But Carr did know basketball. He had started for North Allegheny, Pa., on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, as a junior and senior. That was a much larger school than any in our area, with more than 900 students in Carr’s class. Carr was a 6-foot shooting guard for the team, scoring about 10 points per game as a junior and 16 as a senior. Northern Allegheny won its sectional in Carr’s junior year, but was not as good the year he graduated.

“Our junior-year team had three starters playing college basketball and two who started in college in football,” he said. “I was the only junior in the starting lineup.”

After his high-school graduation Carr moved on to Edinboro University, where he played basketball all four years.

He graduated from Edinboro in 1970 and was immediately drafted into the army. Though the Vietnam War was raging at the time, Carr was fortunate enough to be assigned to Germany. He married after basic training, and his wife, Ann, was able to join him in Germany. In 1972 he was honorably discharged and began job-seeking.

The Panthers freshman team he coached his first year was “extra-talented,” Carr said, including (now Edgewood coach) John Bowler, Paul Stofan, Bill Osborne, Larry Johnson, Dale Miller, Jim Parker and Tony Siler. Carr got by as a freshman football coach, assisting Dave DeLeone.

After eight years as basketball coach, Tom and Ann, who already had a five-year old daughter, Julie, had twin sons, David and Douglas. Tom felt it was time he helped more with the kids’ upbringing.

“It was too much,” he said of coaching along with those responsibilities. “I needed to help my wife out. (Basketball coaching) took a lot of time.”

Carr did continue as head golf coach at Ashtabula, which he had done since 1974, and continued until his career reached 25 years for the Panthers in 2000. His teams won golf championships in 1994 and 1996 in the Northeastern Conference, a very competitive league in that sport. His 1994 team that included Jeff Piscura, Eric Koski, Ryan Richards, Mike Partridge and David Carr, made it to the state tournament.

“We had some good teams and some very good individuals in golf over the years,” Carr said of NEC teams.

He continues to keep involved with golf by working at the counter at Maple Ridge Golf Course in the summers.

In 1985 Carr began his longtime basketball officiating career. His first supervisor, Madison’s Bud Ruland, was nearing the end of a stellar officiating career, including a stint as a Big Ten football official at the time.

Like most new officials, Carr began work as a junior high official, though it wasn’t long until he moved up to high school games.

“It was a lot of work, but I spent a good number of years doing that,” he said. “I’d been involved with basketball since I can remember. It’s the only sport I played, every day of my life. I really enjoy the game and I enjoyed officiating as well. I met a lot of good people officiating.”

After Ruland retired from officiating, Phil Garcia took over as officiating supervisor for this area.

“Phil treated me fabulously,” Carr said. “For the last 10 years I did only varsity games with three officials. That’s so much better (than two officials) and helps the game so much. It gives you more perspective on things. I had a feeling for the game and treated it as what it is, a contact sport.”

Always in good shape, Carr lasted longer than most officials, until he was 68 in 2016.

“I knew I would officiate until I couldn’t do it correctly,” he said. “When I got to (the age of) 68, I knew it was time to stop."

“I did get to officiate at the state tournament at Schottenstein Arena in 2007,” he said.

Tom met his wife, Ann, who taught art at Ashtabula and Lakeside high schools, at Edinboro. Of their three children, Julie, the oldest, a Bowling Green State University graduate, is an administrator in the Riverside school system. Of the twin sons, Douglas, an Ohio State graduate, works for Marathon as a supervisor in I.T. David, a Vanderbilt University graduate and an Ohio State Medical School graduate, is now a surgeon with Ohio State University’s dermatology department.

Richy DeJesus

Rich DeJesus

By CHRIS LARICK

For Rich DeJesus, basketball was pretty much a hand-me-down sport.

Older brothers Louie and Ralph, along with Ernie Pasqualone, handed the sport down to Richy, who in turn put it in the hands of his nephew Kyle and nieces Nara and Rhea.

“I played a ton of ball with my older brothers and Enie Pasqualone (who was inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame in 2010),” DeJesus said. “They allowed me to play with them.

“Rhea and Nara would come and watch us. We’d play three hours a week at the high school. The smaller kids would play on a separate court. We were a big family and all the guys wanted to play with (the older DeJesuses and Pasqualone)."

DeJesus, a 1986 graduate who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on Dec. 3, took the lessons he learned as the little kid playing against older competition first to the Geneva Midget League where he played on the Pipers, coached by Bill Crawford.

Throughout junior high school and high school, DeJesus played on the Geneva Eagles teams with the same group of kids: Mark Malizia, Shaun McHugh, Bill Ball, Norm Potter and John Opron.

“A lot of them had older brothers, so they grew up with those kids teaching me and the others how to play,” DeJesus said.

It was a good combination. The group lost just two games in junior high school and won the Northeastern Conference ninth-grade tournament (most area schools had freshman teams at that time). They also won the conference championship in their sophomore and junior year and were runner-up as seniors.

The Eagles were coached at the time by ACBF Hall of Fame Coach Bill Koval (selected in the group’s first year), who won the third-most games in county boys basketball history with 325, behind Bob Ball’s 361 and Jon Hall’s 333 (though many of Hall’s wins came in another county).

Koval was known as a strict disciplinarian, but DeJesus, who played point guard at 5-11 and controlled the possession of the basketball, found him accommodating.

“I liked him a lot,” DeJesus said of Koval. “We got along great. He pretty much let me go.”

DeJesus averaged between 18 and 20 points his junior and senior years and was selected as the Star Beacon’s Player of the Year both seasons, 1984-85 and 1985-86.

“That’s one thing I’m proud of,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I was the first one to be Player of the Year two years in a row. I’m pretty proud of that.”

DeJesus is correct. He was the first. In fact, of the 50 players chosen as Player of the Year or Co-Player of the Year since 1973, only one other, Jefferson’s Sam Hitchcock (son of an ACBF Hall of Famers, Doug Hitchcock, and grandson of another, Bob Hitchcock) has been chosen as Player of the Year twice, in 2015-16 and 2016-17.

At Geneva DeJesus also played football and ran track. He was chosen Defensive Back of the Year in the NEC in 1985, but that wasn’t one of Coach Bob Herpy’s better years, despite the presence of future Ashtabula County Touchdown Club Hall of Famer Mark Malizia at running back and McHugh, a former national Punt, Pass and Kick champion, at quarterback.

In track DeJesus long-jumped and ran the sprints. He long-jumped 21 feet one year when 21-feet, 1/2 inch would have qualified him for state.

Probably too short to play guard at a Division I school, DeJesus still got one letter of interest from a famous coach — North Carolina’s Dean Smith. He wound up playing his freshman year at the Kent State-Ashtabula branch after being recruited by several Division III colleges.

He moved on to play at Lakeland, which had won the national title the year before.

After a year there, he expressed an interest in playing at Kent’s main campus as a walk-on, but the Golden Flashes’ head coach showed little interest in DeJesus.

“By that time I was kind of frustrated,” he said. “It was time to walk away. I thought I could have played for them.”

He earned his bachelor’s degree in business management. Since then he has worked mostly as a press operator and similar jobs. He currently works for Green Bay Packaging as an operator, living in Geneva.

Terrence Greene

By CHRIS LARICK

Pymatuning Valley 1984 graduate Terrence Greene has always enjoyed working for Cleveland’s professional sports teams.

As a youngster Greene, one of this year’s inductees into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation’s Hall of Fame, sold peanuts for the Indians. Nowadays, he moonlights on Sundays doing security at the Cleveland Browns’ home contests.

"Live sports and the human spirit behind it has always interested my mind,” Greene said.

“I was there and saw the Mason Rudolph game (when Browns defensive end Miles Garrett ‘removed' Rudolph’s helmet, then hit him on the head with it),” Greene said. “I loved going down to those Indians games.”

Greene’s days as a peanut vendor ended when his dad, Charles, a real estate appraiser, moved the Greene family to Andover when Terrence was in the seventh grade. He played both basketball and football (as quarterback) in the seventh grade and basketball in the eighth grade.

After taking a hiatus from sports as a freshman, Greene returned to the court to play hoops for Coach Bob Hitchcock his sophomore year, becoming the only sophomore on the Lakers’ varsity team.

That was a very good Pymatuning Valley team, led by Maurice McDonald, along with Jack Thompson, Greg Douglas, David Miller and Greene, a starter as a sophomore. The Lakers went on to win the league championship with a different cast of characters when Greene was a junior, a group that included Maurice McDonald’s brother, Alan (like Greene, a first-team All-GRC selection), Mike Baker, Brad Burt, Jim Malz and Joel Gordon. Greene was named league MVP and Hitchcock Coach of the Year as the Lakers went 8-2 in the GRC, 11-9 overall. Greene was also selected to the first-team Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County choices and honorable mention All-Ohio list, averaging 17.3 points and nine rebounds per game.

“This was before the three-point shot,” Greene said. “We played good, solid defense. There were some low-scoring games."

The title was the fourth straight for Hitchcock in years he coached. It was his second year back after seven seasons away from coaching.

“He had a calm demeanor, but was very intense in the huddle,” Greene said of Hitchcock. “He was a good coach who allowed me to shoot and play my game. He was very defense-oriented and very good with the X’s and O’s. He taught me a lot about basketball and more about life, to not give up on anything."

The Lakers also won the GRC championship in Greene’s senior year, though they had to defeat Ledgemont in the final league game to take that crown. Grand Valley and Jefferson also gave PV tough battles.

Joe McClusky transferred from Jefferson to Pymatuning Valley in Greene’s senior year. The addition of the 6-foot-7 senior was important because most of the rest of the team, except for Greene and McDonald, graduated.

“We were the only holdovers from that team,” Greene said. “We went 13-7 or 14-7.”

Greene gave up football after his freshman year, but continued to participate in track. He was a member of the 1600-meter relay team that set the school record, along with McDonald and Jim and Steve Hunt. The Lakers finished second in the league behind Perry and the 1600-meter relay squad went to the regional finals and nearly to state.

After his senior year, Greene moved on to college at Mount Union, which he played for in 1984 and 1985. He then left school for a couple of years, but returned to play for Lake Erie College in 1988 and 1989, graduating in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

“I played small forward,” Greene said of his college years. “We had some pretty good teams at Mount Union.

“Lake Erie had just begun its program as a NAIA school. It had been an all-girls school. It was an interesting experience."

After graduating from college, Greene moved back to Cleveland and took a job as a social worker.

“I had learned a lot from books, but life experience was a little different,” he said. “I’m an insurance estimator now. My dad, Charles Greene, is a real estate appraiser. He taught me that insurance was essentially the same thing. He’s been a real estate appraiser for 30 years.”

Greene, who sometimes goes by the first name “Tee” to form an interesting golf combination of Tee Greene, got back into working part-time in Cleveland professional sports when he worked security with the Cavaliers in 2014, one of the years they lost to the Golden State Warriors. He now does security work for the Browns.

He remains unmarried but has a long-time girlfriend. He has two children, Terrence, 26, and Kameron, 23.

Mary Herendeen

Mary (Herendeen) Barr

By CHRIS LARICK

There WAS something about Mary. Still is.

They call it class.

Whoever wrote the headline for the Star Beacon after the Jefferson-Chagrin girls basketball sectional game her sophomore year got it right.

“It was the first varsity game that I really had a big impact,” Mary (Herendeen) Barr (Jefferson, Class of 2004) said recently. “The Star Beacon sports front page headline read 'There's Something About Mary' and I remember feeling really honored and proud for helping my team advance in the tourney.

"I also remember playing Geneva at home my senior year. The gym was packed to capacity! Going into halftime, I remember it being so loud in the gym that I couldn't hear myself think. We really had the best pep club full of my close Falcon classmates, who supported the girls' teams as much as the boys'. We ended up losing that game in the last few minutes, but I'll never forget the decibel level in that place, it was amazing.”

Barr, who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation’s Hall of Fame on April 3, began playing basketball on her family’s gravel driveway at a very early age.

"My dad, Bill Herendeen, was passionate about the sport and it just rubbed off on me,” she said. "I practiced dribbling and shooting with his guidance, and my brothers, Sam and Ben, accompanied me in developing our fundamental skills.

"When I was in elementary school, I started participating in the Jefferson Community Center basketball programs with the boys. I remember Jessica Kelly and I were the only girls who ran around in pinnies against all the boys in our grade.

"Later in elementary school, we joined many more girls for Miss (Jeanine) Bartlett's summer camps, which were led by the older Jefferson players whom I looked up to.”

During her early years in the game (the fifth and sixth grades), parents of some of the girls served as coaches. By that time, Barr had learned the fundamentals from her father and from the high school girls who coached the summer basketball camps.

At 5-foot-9 Barr played all positions on the court at one time or another, but favored shooting guard. Lauren Dalsky and Jessica Kelly, two of her fellow Class of 2004 teammates, played forward. By then the Falcons were benefitting from the infusion of younger talent, including freshmen such as Kelcie Hellmer, Haley Kapferer and Aleasa Knight.

Jefferson battled Geneva for the supremacy of the Northeastern Conference during those years under the coaching of the late Rod Holmes, who will be inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame posthumously this year. The Falcons also made it to the district finals against Perry one year. Barr recalls in her senior year losing to Lake Catholic in the tournament.

The Falcons lost two games and finished second to Geneva her senior year. But Herendeen was named Ashtabula County Co-Player of the Year (with Edgewood’s Pam Dreslinski), Star Beacon girls Scholar-Athlete of the Year (with a 4.0 GPA), was first-team All-Northeast Lakes District and special mention All-Ohio. Of course, she was a first-teamer on the All-Ashtabula County and All-NEC teams.

“She was a leader both vocally and by example,” Hellmer once said.

"He was a really good coach,” Barr said of Rod Holmes. "He knew how to motivate me and basically gave me the green light as a player my junior and senior years, which was really great because I knew he trusted my skill and leadership abilities.

"He always knew how to make me smile when I was being too hard on myself (I was my own worst enemy), and had the ability to help me over my mental blocks. I'll never forget when he came to watch (or scout) our team in the eighth grade and I was so nervous. Soon after, I was asked to come practice with the high school team and I remember feeling so proud that I made an impression on him.

In addition to basketball, Barr played volleyball and softball at Jefferson.

“I loved volleyball second best, in large part due to (Coach Jeanine) Bartlett, who was one of the best coaches I've ever played under,” Barr said. "We were pretty competitive throughout my high school career in volleyball, and I believe we won the NEC a few times, including my senior year.

"The sectional/district tournament was always ridiculous because Lake Catholic was in it, so the chances of advancing were pretty slim, but we held our own for sure. I played second base and outfield in softball, and really enjoyed our spring break tournament trips to Myrtle Beach.”

Thanks to her father’s record-keeping, Barr is able to cite the awards she won during her high-school career. In basketball, she was second-team all-NEC and all-county as a sophomore; first team all-county and all-NEC in addition to second-team all Northeast Lakes District and honorable mention all-Ohio as a junior and (as a senior) first-team all county, all-NEC, and all-NE Lakes District, special mention All-Ohio, Player of the Game in the ACWSAA All-Star game, Star Beacon outstanding scholar-athlete and 2003-04 Star Beacon Co-Player of the Year.

In volleyball she earned honors as first-team all Ashtabula County and first team NEC both junior and senior years, player of the match ACWSAA all-star match senior year. She also made first-team all-county and all-NEC in softball her senior year.

As she neared graduation, she was recruited by quite a few Division III colleges, including Wooster, Hiram, Wilmington and Case Western Reserve University.

"I was going into nursing and Case Western was the only school that offered nursing (one of the best programs in the country) so that was my choice,” Barr said. "I went for a recruitment visit and I remember the coach telling me about the UAA (University Athletic Association) and that they played teams all over, including the University of Chicago, Emory University in Atlanta, NYU, Brandeis in Boston, and the University of Washington in St. Louis, and they flew to all of those places and were essentially treated like a Division I team.

“I had never even been on a plane at that point in my life, so I was sold! I went to Case and played basketball all four years.

“It was the most amazing experience and I still have some of the best of friends that I met playing there.”

It worked out well for Case, too. Herendeen still holds the school record for most three-pointers scored in a single game (seven). She made second-team All-UAA her senior year.

After scoring about seven points and four rebounds as a junior for Case, she was averaging 14.7 points while playing 34 minutes a game in her senior year.

“That was a big deal to me because the conference is so competitive,” she said.

Barr graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Case in 2008. She stayed in Cleveland and worked in the medical ICU at University Hospitals of Cleveland for almost two years right out of college.

From there she moved on to St. Elizabeth’s School for Nurse Anesthetists in Youngstown earning her Masters in Nurse Anesthesia in December, 2012.

Then she went back to University Hospitals in Cleveland, working as a CRNA there for four-and-a-half years.

Meanwhile, she volunteer-coached at Case from 2012-2014 with Jennifer Reimer.

“That was a really fun experience,” she said.

In 2017 Barr and her husband, Mike, moved to Nashville to be closer to her sister, Julie (who had preceded her as a basketball star at Jefferson) and her family.

“We loved Nashville, but my job there wasn't the best, so in 2018 we moved to Columbus, where I work for a small orthopedic anesthesia group,” Barr said.

The Barrs have been married since Oct., 2018. The two met while Mary was coaching at Case, at his best friend, Jody’s birthday party, just as she was about to move back to Cleveland after anesthesia school.

“It was meant to be,” Barr said. “We have an eight-year-old all black German shepherd named Rico, who was Mike's police dog while he worked as a ranger for the Cleveland Metroparks.

“Our beautiful daughter, Allie Rose Barr, was born on September 11, 2019, and she has changed our lives in the best ways possible. I hope she wants to play basketball someday."

Barr doesn’t participate in organized sports anymore, but still works out a lot, though not as much since having Allie.

“Sometimes I'll go shoot hoops with my brother Ben, who still plays basketball very regularly,” she said. “I miss playing, but my knees don't allow for it anymore. I enjoy hiking in the Columbus Metroparks, working out at Orange Theory Fitness and doing hot yoga.

“I also like to read in my spare time, but my favorite thing is spending time with my family and watching Allie grow and change.”

Since this article was originally written in 2020 the Barrs have given birth to another child, Matthew, who is now almost six months old.

Rod Holmes

By CHRIS LARICK

Ashtabula County can boast of its fair share of excellent high school basketball coaches in its history.

Ashtabula High School Coach Bob Ball notched 361 wins over 28 years. Jon Hall Sr. managed 333 in 27 seasons. Though many of Hall’s came as a coach in other counties, many too were at Edgewood and St. John.

Geneva’s Bill Koval claimed 325 wins in 27 years, while Conneaut’s Andy Garcia won 312 games in 22 years.

All of those coaches have two things in common: They coached boys and they are now in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation’s Hall of Fame.

Girls coaches, meanwhile, had one problem that kept them from equaling or surpassing boys coaches in Ohio: Girls basketball was not a recognized OHSAA sport until the 1975-76 season.

Jefferson coach Rod Holmes didn’t start as head coach of the Falcons until 1985. But by 2006 he had passed all of those county boys coaches in victories. By the time he resigned as Jefferson girls basketball coach he had racked up 444 victories, all but seven of them at Jefferson. His lifetime record of 444-204 gave him a .685 winning percentage, also the highest in county history.

As a result of his success and his development of fine high school players, Holmes himself will be inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame on Apr. 3 at Conneaut’s New Leaf Banquet Center.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of his coaching success is that basketball was not even his best sport. In fact, he was cut from Badger High School’s boys team as a senior. The sport he truly excelled in was baseball.

Born in Warren in 1959 to Ray and Betty J. Holmes, Rod went on to Badger High School, then to Malone College, where he played baseball for four years and majored in mathematics. After graduation he got a teaching and coaching job at Bristol High School before shortly thereafter beginning at Jefferson as a teacher and coach in 1983. His success as a coach surprised even himself.

“(I didn’t expect to get that many wins) when I started,” Holmes once told Bob Ettinger. “You never know how long you’re going to stay in it or how long they’re going to let you stay in it. Those first couple of years (a 7-14 season at Bristol and a 2-19 year at Jefferson), I never thought we’d be above .500, let alone get the number of victories I’ve ended up with.”

In 2006 he broke the county record for career basketball coaching wins. He surpassed the 400-win barrier in 2009, only the 30th girls’ basketball coach in Ohio to reach that mark.

Of the many great players Holmes has coached, nine of them: (chronologically) Anita Jurcenko, Kelly Boggs, Di Anthony, Traci Hozian, Trixie Wolfe, Kiki McNair, Kelly Kapferer, Shelly Burns and Bekki Hamper are already in the ACBF Hall of Fame. A 10th, Mary (Herendeen) Barr will join them this year, along with Holmes, in his case posthumously.

“Over the years, you see how many girls we’ve had go on to play in college,” Holmes said in 2009. “You can see why we’ve gotten as many wins as we’ve gotten. It feels good to get the wins. But it feels good that the girls get the wins. They’ve had success and that’s what it’s about.

“We’ve had good players,” Holmes said. “All of them have put a lot of time into the game. They’ve practiced alone at home in the driveway, at a church or somewhere else. Some of them put in five, six or seven hours a day during the summer. When those girls put all of that time in, it makes it easy for a coach.”

Holmes felt every Jefferson player contributed to his success in one way or another.

“No doubt about it,” Holmes said. “Every player that’s been here has contributed in some way. I think that first group I coached at Jefferson, which won just two games, had as much to do with (my success) as any other group I’ve had. They’re the ones that got it going.”

The time he spent coaching, as is true for all coaches, inevitably cost him some time with his family.

By the time of his death from a virulent form of colon cancer in 2016, he had been married to Denise, for 33 years. The Holmeses gave birth to two children, Raymond and Katie. His family supported him in his coaching career greatly.

“It means a lot” Holmes, who regretted missing his daughter’s first JV basketball game for Pymatuning Valley because of a Jefferson tournament game.

"I didn’t get to see it and that bothers me. But my kids and my wife understand. My wife used to have a sign that said, ‘This marriage interrupted for basketball season.’ I’m out of the house quite a lot through basketball season.”

Both of the Holmes children took turns sitting on the bench alongside their father for games while wearing a version of the trademarked red sweater their father wore.

Many of the Jefferson players Holmes coached looked upon him as a father figure.

"He was the father I didn't have,” Traci Hozian once said. "He pushed me to become not just a great player, but a great person.”

“It was great to have his influence for four years,” said Jurcenko, the first of his players to be inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame. "I’m amazed at how he was able to get so much out of people. He knows so much about motivating and leading young kids. I found out there’s a big difference between a coach and a mentor/leader.”

Bekki Hamper, who played for Holmes quite a few years later, said, “It was great to have his influence for four years. I’m amazed at how he was able to get so much out of people. He knows so much about motivating and leading young kids. He knows how to get the most out of each individual.”

Similar feelings were expressed by all of the Jefferson players Holmes coached. One of the first, Kelly Boggs, summed up the influence he had.

"I loved Coach Holmes from the beginning," she said. "He always exuded positiveness. He was the gentle giant. He never got mad.”

Denise, his widow, recently moved to Lancaster, Ohio (about 30-35 miles from Columbus) to be near the Holmes children, Raymond and Katie.

Raymond, who starred as a football lineman at Pymatuning Valley and won the prestigious Robert L Wiese Award, is now a pharmacist at Fairfield Medical Center in Lancaster. Katie played softball and basketball at PV, going on to earn a softball scholarship at Edinboro University, where she played catcher for four years. Katie is currently a stay-at-home mom but also runs sewing business and clothing line businesses from home. She lives about a half mile from Denise in Lancaster.

“It’s good that I moved down here,” Denise said recently. “I get to see my kids all the time.”

She also enjoys being with her grandchildren; Katie’s two boys, Joshua, 4, and Kristopher, 6 months; and Raymond’s daughter, Dellawynn, 2.

Marc Pope

By CHRIS LARICK

Ashtabula County boys basketball arguably flourished as never before and never since in the days of the Northeastern Conference, particularly in the period from the 1970s through the 1990s.

One of the best years in that duration was the 1977-1978 season.

Ashtabula High School had the best team of that year (maybe the best county team of all time), a squad that included Tom Hill, Deora Marsh and David Benton. But almost every school had at least one basketball standout. Geneva and Conneaut could boast future Hall of Famers Jay McHugh and Dave Sillanpaa, respectively. Edgewood’s roster included Mark Skarlinski, St. John’s Joe Whalen. Harbor, which had just graduated Hall of Famer John Bradley, saw Marc Pope develop into one of the best players in the county.

Pope will join 10 others, men and women, in making up this year’s class of inductees into the Ashtabula County Basketball’s Hall of Fame on April 3 at Conneaut’s New Leaf Center.

He began his organized basketball experience on the Saybrook Elementary School team in the sixth grade, but didn’t play when his class moved to Columbus St. Junior High in the seventh grade. But he returned to play for coach Frank Knudsen in the eighth grade.

Then, between the eighth and ninth grade he had a growth spurt.

“I grew five inches, from 5-foot-8 to 6-foot-1,” Pope said.

Coaches tend to love height increases like those. In this case, Harbor’s freshman coach, John Higgins, was the beneficiary.

“We won the NEC freshman tournament that year,” Pope said. “That built my confidence in my skills.”

Harbor was a good team and shared the NEC championship in 1976, Pope remembers.

“We were above average,” he said. “We could have used a little more depth."

As a sophomore, Pope played on the Mariner JV team under coach Bob Shorts before starting as a junior and senior under coach Ed Armstrong, growing to an eventual height of 6-foot-3. He averaged about 12 points per game as a junior before blossoming after becoming the team’s biggest offensive weapon after Bradley’s graduation, a back-to-the-basket center capable of scoring 30 points a game and adding 20 rebounds.

Among his teammates were Tim Jones, Tim Givens, Darrell Sargent (whose best sport was track), a 6-foot-guard; Max Holman, a 5-9 guard, Joe Chiachierro, a 5-8 guard, Gordon DeLaat, a 5-10 guard, and Jim Davis, a 6-foot-5 center-forward.

Pope’s best game may have come against Riverside in a game the Star Beacon characterized as a “one-man show.” He scored 27 points and added 18 rebounds and three blocked shots in that contest.

Pope remembers three other games well.

“Ashtabula High School was our nemesis,” he said. “They had Tom Hill, Tim Bowler, David Benton and Deora Marsh. But we did beat them my junior year in the sectional finals in overtime. We played in Warren. That rivalry was like Ohio State and Michigan. I remember our reaction: we beat them when it counted. Unfortunately, we were Michigan.”

In another big game his junior year, the Mariners topped a strong Geneva team.

“They only had one loss and we beat them, 54-50,” he recalls. “They beat everybody else. In the second game they destroyed us. Brad Ellis was a senior that year and they had the two Hassetts, Tony and Mike. Jay McHugh was a sophomore on that team.

“Also my senior year I had a 33-point, 18-rebound, four-blocked shot game we lost at the buzzer to Conneaut. We were beat by Jefferson, also on a last-second shot. That was a tough week."

Pope, who had averaged 12 points and 11 rebounds as a junior while playing second fiddle to Bradley, was named Player of the Week twice during his senior season, averaging 18.7 points and 10.3 rebounds. He was a Star Beacon All-Ashtabula first-team selection, along with Ashtabula’s Hill, Geneva’s McHugh, Conneaut’s Sillanpaa and Jefferson’s Chuck Stevens.

“Marc is the man we have to go to, to score and win,” his coach, Armstrong, said.

“We expect him to carry the load for us inside with rebounding, too,” He added that Pope was a team leader and class individual.

“He’s a dedicated player who works hard.”

As a freshman and sophomore Pope also played baseball (first base) for the Mariners, but didn’t go out for the team after that.

“I could have been a better baseball player than basketball player,” he said.

Making his senior year more impressive was the fact that he never played at 100 percent that year.

“I played my senior year with a tumor on my left wrist,” he said. “I fractured the wrist but when it healed, it affected my flexibility and strength. After my senior season I had surgery, bone grafts in April, 1978.”

Pope had interest from several Division III colleges and eventually chose Muskingum in Ohio, which had been in the top seven or eight schools in its class in the country the year before in Division III.

He did well academically, but didn’t enjoy life there and wound up transferring to Youngstown State.

“They were bigger and better guys there,” he said. "Jay McHugh played a couple of years at Youngstown after transferring from Texas A & M. I had lost my desire to play.”

After transferring, Pope concentrated on his education. He began in civil engineering, but changed his major to business administration with a major in accounting.

After graduation he began a career in accounting in several local businesses. After a few years, he was elected to the position of Fiscal Officer of Saybrook Township, a position he wound up being elected to five times.

Later he added the responsibilities of Saybrook Township Supervisor of Roads and Cemeteries, a job he has done since.

Pope married a 1976 graduate of St. John, Theresa Berrier, in 1986. The two met at Youngstown State. Theresa’s brother is Denny Berrier, who coached the St. John basketball team for several years.

Theresa has worked as a real estate broker for 37 years, most recently with Asa Cox Century 21 Homes. The couple has a daughter, Brittany, 34; and a son, Alex, 22; along with a granddaughter, Brooklyn, 8, and a young grandson, Logan, 1.

Augie Pugliese

By CHRIS LARICK

Every team has its moments. For the St. John boys basketball team, there were two of them.

Those occurred in 1988-1989 and 1989-1990, when the Heralds went a combined 35-9, including an 18-3 mark in 1988-89, the year they shared a Northeastern Conference championship with Ashtabula, the only league crown in school history in that sport.

That St. John squad was led by junior Steve Hanek, already in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame, and senior Augie Pugliese, who will join Hanek in the Hall of Fame on Apr. 3. Dave Golen and Jim Chiacchiero, also members of the ACBF, were contributors as sophomores.

The multi-class makeup of the Herald squad and young head coach John Bowler made for an interesting combination, but it wasn’t built to last.

“We had a pretty good team,” Pugliese said. “Unfortunately, we were not all in the same year. Steve and I didn’t get to play with Dave and Jim very long. We were not all there at the same time.”

The quartet was joined by Greg Andrego in the starting lineup. Senior Mark DiSalvatore started early in the year but was later replaced by Golen.

“Mark DiSalvatore did a lot of starting,” Pugliese said. “But John (Bowler) liked to work young guys into the lineup. Mark was a good teammate and didn’t care if he started. It was not an issue. He would do whatever was needed for the good of the team.”

Pugliese grew up with a father who loved sports and watching Ohio State games on television.

“Watching the OSU Buckeyes and practicing with Rick Andrego Senior’s YMCA basketball team got the basketball fire started in the third grade,” Pugliese said.

Encouraged by childhood friends Joe Orlando and Joe Prugar, Pugliese became manager for Mt. Carmel’s seventh/eighth-grade teams in fifth grade and began practicing with them.

“He was the parochial school coach for Mt. Carmel,” Pugliese said of Prugar. “He didn’t cut anybody. He even made the uniforms for us. He and Dale Milano taught us from the fifth to the eighth grade. Joe was from Erie and would take us to tournaments there. This was before travel teams existed. Joe was before his time. That was a good experience.

“From fifth through eighth grade we didn’t lose a league game. Neither did the class before.”

Meanwhile, the Herald varsity teams suffered losing seasons until Pugliese’s senior year when they went 18-3 after an 8-13 junior year.

“Steve and I were on the same JV and varsity teams together,” Pugliese said. “Jim and Dave contributed and made a difference my senior year.

“As sophomores we did OK, but I don’t think we won 10 games. But we won the sectional. The coach was Larry Daniels. The JV team (coached by Bowler) went 17-4.”

Pugliese transitioned from parochial school (Mt. Carmel) to public school (Harbor) as a freshman, coached by Doug Hladek.

“He had the same ideas as Coach Prugar, all about fundamentals,” Pugliese said. “I didn’t become a scorer until my senior year. I was always a point guard because of my size. But in eighth grade I grew six inches. I grew significantly between eighth and twelfth grade and became a 6-2, 175-pound guard, a decent size.”

However, he never scored much until his senior year, when Daniels retired and Bowler took over the varsity.

“John had to talk me into shooting,” Pugliese said. “It was pass first for me.”

Bowler was a young coach, still in his 30s, and along with his brother Tim, Paul Stofan, Bill Osborne, and Pete Candela, played with and against St. John players year-round.

“John was a good passer and is still one of the best,” Pugliese said. “Tim Bowler did it all, is one of the best I’ve ever seen, did everything at his size.”

It all came together during Pugliese’s senior year, with the Heralds going 18-3, losing only to Ashtabula (who beat them at Ball Gym to split the NEC championship) and Harvey in the regular season.

That earned them the top seed in the sectionals at Berkshire, but they lost the first game to Kirtland.

“We hit our stride when we beat Ashtabula to win (a share of) the NEC,” Pugliese said. “That was a big accomplishment for us. Maybe we should have won 20 games that year, but I wouldn’t trade the NEC championship for anything because we were the only St. John team to win it.”

During his senior year, Pugliese averaged 17 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists per game while shooting about 80 percent from the foul line.

The improvement in his scoring came largely thanks to friend Paul Stofan, who worked with him on his jump shot.

“Paul pulled me aside and worked on my jump shot,” Pugliese said. “By the time I started playing varsity, I could shoot.”

Pugliese had always loved football and played it as a sophomore at St. John, the school’s last state tournament game. But when Bowler took over, basketball became a year-round focus and he gave up football. Baseball coach Bill Schmidt didn’t want him practicing basketball during baseball season, so he gave up baseball as well.

He became a two-time MVP, All-NEC, All-County, All-District, All-Diocese, and All-Ohio in basketball.

Recruited by almost every Division III and some Division II schools in the area, he initially planned to attend Heidelberg College but eventually chose to play for Brad Ellis at Hiram.

“I did go to Hiram to play for Coach Ellis and went through fall workouts but wasn’t sure if it was for me anymore,” Pugliese said. “Once I decided to switch my major, I decided to transfer to Akron.”

He transferred to the University of Akron after the fall quarter in 1989, changing his major from communications to accounting. He never played college basketball.

After graduating in 1994, Pugliese held various jobs: warehouse controller, deputy auditor for Sandy O’Brien for two years, then automobile buyer at Great Lakes Auto. Eventually, he became his own auto wholesaler. In 2008, he went back into the warehouse business with a friend, Louie DeJesus, at Associated Materials.

He now runs that business, distributing windows and siding out of 500,000 square feet of the Mohawk Paper business in the old True Temper building in Saybrook.

Pugliese married Elizabeth Graeb. They have two children, Augie, 13, and Gia, 11, both attending Lakeside schools. Elizabeth teaches at A-Tech. Augie enjoys sports and video games, Gia loves art. Both sets of parents are still living.

Augie continues to play basketball, though less than before and no longer in a league.

“People tell me I’m a good shooter, but I hate that because I took pride in being an all-around player. Now I’m only a shooter,” Pugliese said. “I can’t move well, so that’s all I can do, spot up and shoot. I still enjoy being around the young guys though. When I run, I don’t feel young anymore.”

He occasionally plays golf with his buddy Paul Stofan but is saving that game for when he’s too old to play basketball.

“I still try to go to the gym,” he said. “And I also enjoy woodworking and construction.”

Justin Turk

By CHRIS LARICK

Grand Valley graduate Justin Turk (Class of 1998) remembers his best high school basketball game well.

“My most memorable game was at Bristol my senior year,” Turk said. “It was a game to decide the league early on in the season. We played a terrible first half and were down 24 points at halftime. We came back to win. I scored 29 points in the second half, but the greatest part was doing it with a great group of guys. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed playing with Brad Dolan, Al Rubosky, Mark Dobay and the others. We had a great team and they deserve a lot of credit for those years.”

Turk, who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 3, got started in the game of basketball earlier than most.

“My dad (Ralph) was involved in coaching youth sports when I was born, so I was always around the baseball, football or basketball fields/courts,” Turk said.

In third and fourth grades, Turk and his classmates learned the game from Mustangs' longtime basketball and football coach Tom Henson (a member of both the ACBF and Ashtabula County Touchdown Club Halls of Fame) on Saturday mornings.

“It was more drills, ballhandling, and then games at the end,” Turk said. “Coach T loved the fundamentals. My dad was my coach early on when we started. He coached our fifth-eighth grade years. We rarely lost.”

“I played with basically the same group of kids since the third grade. We played everything together (baseball, basketball and football). We won a ton of games in the various sports and it was special to do it with the same group. Not like today where kids want to transfer to try to find a better situation....I loved every minute playing and working hard with guys I truly cared about and still do to this day.”

Turk played small forward and shooting guard at 6-foot-2 for the Mustangs, who went 15-6 and won the East Suburban Conference championship his senior year.

“I loved every minute playing with my teammates,” he said. “Mark Dobay and Steve Pandur were our point guards, Al Rubosky was a guard, Ralph Childs and Brad Dolan were our posts and Scott Redford was a wing player.”

Turk liked playing for Henson.

“He was old school and hard nosed, no-nonsense,” Turk said.

Turk finished his high school basketball career with 737 points (ninth all-time in school history), a game-high of 35 points (seventh all-time) and with a free-throw career shooting percentage of 75 percent (third all-time). He won numerous honors his senior year after playing varsity ball for four years and starting for three of them. Among his awards were MVP of the league (ESC), first Team All-County and conference and honorable mention all-state. He was also honorable mention all-state in football as a defensive back.

The football team, coached by Touchdown Club first-ballot Hall of Famer Jim Henson, posted undefeated regular seasons his junior and senior years and made the playoffs. In his senior football season (1997), the Mustangs lost to Applecreek Waynedale in the regional finals, 14-12. He remembers starting at safety and receiver and notching eight catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns in the regional game.

In addition, Turk played baseball, lettering two years and winning second-team all-county and all-conference honors as a senior.

He was recruited by a number of Division III colleges and eventually decided on John Carroll University. He played two years there before turning his focus to his schooling and career preparation.

At John Carroll, Turk majored in business, taking a B.S. B.A. in accounting, then going on for his master’s in business administration. After finishing those degrees, he accepted an internship with a small accounting firm his junior year of college and was then hired full-time after graduation. He worked there for six months before joining the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, where he has spent the past 17 years, currently as Controller. Six years ago he added a job as boys basketball coach at Grand Valley, the past five years as head coach.

“It is truly special to be able to be the head coach at the school I attended,” he said.

Turk and his wife, Laura (a year behind him at Grand Valley), hung out with the same group of friends in high school.

“It wasn't until the college years that we started hanging out more and eventually started dating,” Turk said. “It was unexpected and a surprise to many at first. She attended Akron while I was at JCU. She's truly a special person.

The couple has been married for 17 years.

“It has been 17 great years,” Turk said. “We have 13-year-old twins, Carter and Cloe. We spend a lot of time allowing them to pursue many of their interests which include basketball, baseball, softball, football and soccer.

“I have also been lucky enough to coach many of their sports teams. We also love our St. Bernards, Eva and Lucy.”

The dogs are three years old. Of course, St. Bernards are among the largest of dog breeds so there is a lot needed to care for them.

“We do have a decent yard that allows them to run and burn off their energy,” Turk said. “As for food, they will each eat as much as someone will give them!”

The family lives (and the children go to school) in Orwell, giving Justin a long drive back and forth to work in downtown Cleveland and coaching in Orwell.

“I love my job but my passion is coaching, and work has allowed me to do both,” Justin said.

“I coach both at the high school and youth levels. I coach my son’s fifth-grade basketball team. It definitely makes for a chaotic winter and very few family meals at home but I wouldn't have it any other way.

“I say work has allowed me to do both, but the reality is that it is my wife and kids that have allowed me to do both. My wife has been unbelievably great and understanding and has fully supported me doing both. She's a true supporter of the teams and the school.

“Basketball, though, has turned into much more than just a winter sport. It has evolved into a year-round sport. With summer workouts, lifting, summer camps for the youth, open gyms, team camps, etc., there is very little down time. Plus, I coach travel baseball in the spring and summer for my son's team.”

Even if Justin wanted to participate in sports, he would have difficulty finding time to do it.

“I rarely play much, other than to prove a point in practice,” he said. “I enjoy coaching at GV and am lucky my wife continues to let me do it. Winter definitely makes for a busy time of the year in our household.”

Mo Wofford

By CHRIS LARICK

Mo Wofford, a 1990 Conneaut graduate, first learned the game of basketball using rather unusual equipment.

“I got started messing around using a square milk crate (for a basket),” said Wofford, one of 11 men and women who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 3 at New Leaf Banquet Center in Conneaut.

“The guys I remember playing with were a little older than me, Scott Nine and Greg Woods. I grew up with them. We played on dirt or grass, threw the ball in the milk crates.”

His first experience with team basketball came in the seventh grade at Rowe Junior High, playing with his cousin, Tyrone Hunt, and other neighborhood boys.

“In the morning, before classes, we had open gym,” Wofford said. “We were pretty much on our own.”

Early in his basketball career, Wofford played guard, standing just 5-foot-11. By high school he had grown to 6-foot-1.

“A couple years out of high school, I sprouted up to 6-foot-4,” he said.

The Spartans were a good team at the time, though they were years away from the dominance they enjoyed during the two years that the trio of 1,000-pointers — Dan Coxon, Mike Pape and Tony Lyons — manhandled other area teams.

“Matt Zappitelli (who led the county in scoring for 20 years, until A.J. Henson displaced him in 2008) was two years ahead of me. We had a good squad, were always above .500 while I was there,” Wofford said.

With Zappitelli, Conneaut won the Northeastern Conference championship in 1988. Some of the NEC teams surpassed them during Wofford’s years, including Harvey, Ashtabula and St. John, which had stars like Steve Hanek, Jim Chiacchiero, Dave Golen and Augie Pugliese.

Wofford played small forward and some power forward for the Spartan teams of the time. He led the team, which also included Scott Pape, Boyd Griffith, Brian Beste, Adam Scott, Gary Bleffen, Jim Lucas and Neil Sabo, in scoring.

The Spartans at the time were coached by Greg Mason. Mason liked to run a fast-paced offense.

“He was a great guy, like a father figure to me,” Wofford said of Mason. “He showed me the ropes. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy.”

Wofford became a prolific scorer under Mason, scoring 23 or 24 points a game as a senior, after averaging 17-plus as a junior. He played in some varsity games as a sophomore, enough to earn a letter. In one game against Pymatuning Valley, he scored 44 points and added 11 rebounds.

He also played football at Conneaut, starting at wide receiver and free safety after moving from quarterback earlier in his career. The Spartans went 6-4 under coach Jeff Whittaker his senior year, with Wofford being named MVP. Against Harbor, he scored four touchdowns and had two interceptions.

“That was the first time my grandfather ever came and saw me play,” Wofford said of that Harbor game.

Despite his strong senior season in basketball, ending in being named Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County Player of the Year, Wofford was not heavily recruited.

“I didn’t have the best grades in the world,” he said. “And I didn’t get much help in finding a school. My mother helped me get a junior college offer.”

Wofford wound up at Cazenovia, a small junior college near Syracuse, New York. He played for half his freshman season, averaging 27 or 28 points a game, before a financial glitch forced him to withdraw from the school.

He returned to Conneaut and played rec ball for the rest of that season. The next year, Tiffin University in Tiffin, OH, awarded him a partial football scholarship.

“That didn’t work out for me,” he said. “I joined the Navy (as a member of the Seabees) for a two-year tour.”

When he got out, he went to Michigan, found out he liked it there, and moved there. He has lived in Roseville, about 10 miles from Detroit, since. He has a sister, Cyndi, and nieces (Diamond, Amber and Crystal), along with a nephew, Nakeem, who still live in Kingsville. His mother and father both died young, about five or six years ago.

Wofford worked for a company that makes trestles for houses for years in Michigan but now works for Plating Specialties in Madison Heights, Michigan. The company works with metals like zinc and nickel.

Dawn Martin Zappitelli

Dawn (Martin) Zappitelli

By CHRIS LARICK

Dawn (Martin) Zappitelli knows she owes a lot of her basketball success to another Ashtabula center, Eleanor Young.

Young, who was selected to the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 2006, was instrumental in making Zappitelli the player she was, one who will join Young in the ACBF Hall of Fame on March 29.

“During my freshmen year, Eleanor Young took me under her wing and pushed me hard in practices,” Zappitelli said. “She said she was graduating and I needed to be ready. We both were post players and I had to guard her every day. She never let me slack. I remember playing against (Harbor’s) Roberta Cevera Blakeslee from Harbor and saw how physical she played. I knew Eleanor was right — I needed to work harder and get a lot stronger.”

When Zappitelli, a 1987 Ashtabula graduate, was in elementary school, sixth-grade teacher Bill Mercilliott was offering an after-school program to teach basketball’s fundamentals. Zappitelli watched her older brother Bill practice in the family driveway and began to pick up the game.

In the seventh grade at West Junior High she tried out for the school team, but got cut, motivating her to work even harder. That resulted in her making the eighth-grade team. Her coach, Dom Cavalancia, saw something in her and asked if she wanted to be the student manager for the high school team, allowing her to attend games, help keep statistics, and see Diana Davis, probably Ashtabula High School’s best female basketball player ever, in action.

“I was in awe of her abilities,” Zappitelli said. “That was motivation for me to continue to work hard.”

Between the eighth and ninth grades Zappitelli went through a growth spurt and reached 6-foot-1, making her a natural for center, a position she played throughout high school and college. She was joined on the Panthers team by the same group of girls — Nicole Deligianis, Dee Dee Chatman, Sabrina Williams, Tracey Miller, Shelly Chapman, Kim Luce, MaryLou Cardona.

After being coached by Joe Jerman in the eighth grade, Zappitelli and her teammates came under the tutelage of Cavalancia as a freshman, then Jeff Covington for her high school years.

“I learned a lot from Coach Covington,” Zappitelli said. “I think he may have learned a lot from us too; it's very different coaching girls. He was very disciplined and knew the game inside and out and spent a lot of time working with me to improve my inside and outside game. I always credit him if I talk about my 1,000 points in college because it was on a three-pointer and he always encouraged me to take the shot if it was there. He'd say ‘Make them play you in the paint but show them they have to look out for your jumper, too.’”

“I learned a lot from him, which helped me tremendously in college. Howard Jenter was my college coach three of my four years playing and I have a lot of respect for him as a coach and a person.”

Never much interested in keeping track of her statistics, Zappitelli doesn’t know her team or individual records from high school.

“I did not even know I scored my 1,000th point in college until they stopped the game,” she said. “Stats were never that important — I played in the moment.”

“Some of my best memories in high school were cutting down the nets in tournaments. We always seemed to be the underdogs but could pull out a few big games.”

In her freshman year at Ashtabula, Zappitelli ran cross-country, but didn’t care for it. So the following fall as a sophomore, she began playing volleyball.

“I found another sport that I love,” she said. “I ran track and lettered the three years I participated. I earned team, county and conference recognition and decided to attend a small college to continue playing volleyball and basketball.”

During her high school career, Zappitelli received MVP and All-Ashtabula County and All-Northeastern Conference recognition for volleyball and basketball. She later added MVP, all-tournament, All-PAC, All-OAC and special awards in college. She has been inducted into the Hiram College Athletic Hall of Fame.

“I could not have done any of it without my teammates and coaches,” she said.

As her senior season went on, Covington sent out player profile stat sheets to colleges all over the country (DI-DIII), and Zappitelli received a lot of interest from a variety of schools.

“After talking a lot with the coach at Canisius, I realized I wanted to go to a smaller school,” she said. “Hiram's basketball coach, Howard Jenter, a Grand Valley grad, took a lot of time talking to my family and I about the benefits of Hiram. I knew Nicole Deligianis was planning on going to Hiram, so it felt right.”

“I chose Hiram as it gave me the opportunity to play both of the sports I loved, volleyball and basketball. Playing two sports gave me the structure and discipline I needed to transition into being a college student-athlete.”

Zappitelli proved to be one of those rare players who became a better college player than high school player.

“When I graduated college I knew I had scored over 1,000 points and held several records but do not know if any are still standing,” she said. “I was one of those players that got better with time.”

Though Hiram is not one of those schools that post all of its athletic records online, one of Zappitelli’s records was mentioned this year on the school’s women’s basketball website. One of the Hiram players notched her 258th rebound of the season in a recent game, eclipsing Zappitelli’s record of 253.

Zappitelli earned a B.A. in Elementary Education at Hiram, then went on to complete her master’s degree. She later went back to school and earned her Administrative license from Gannon University.

After graduating she did some long-term substitute teaching in Ashtabula while coaching volleyball and basketball at Pymatuning Valley.

Keith Thimons, the superintendent of Pymatuning Valley Schools, then offered her a full-time teaching position at PV Primary. She continued coaching there until 1999, when she was offered a teaching position in Conneaut. She taught sixth grade at Rowe Middle School and Conneaut Middle School until moving into administration.

She has spent nine years as principal at Conneaut High School (with the honor of being the first female principal) in addition to six years (in two stints) at Gateway Elementary. She spent her first two years in administration at Gateway as an assistant principal and, going back four years ago, as principal.

Zappitelli has three daughters. The oldest, Angie, 26, was a three-sport athlete and valedictorian from Conneaut High School, graduating with a B.A in Exercise Science from John Carroll University. Angie played softball at John Carroll and is currently working on her Doctorate of Physical Therapy at Cleveland State University.

Lexi, 24, was also a three-sport athlete for CHS and graduated in 2015. She recently finished her degree in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Lexi has finished her collegiate softball career at Youngstown State University.

Maddie, 14, attends Conneaut Middle School. She is in the band and plays volleyball for the school as well as Club Ashtabula.

Dawn herself continues to coach volleyball for Club Ashtabula but resigned from coaching interscholastic sports when she became an administrator.

1947 Ashtabula Panthers – State Semifinal Team

Ramon "Ray" Peet

By CHRIS LARICK

The Ashtabula Panthers were pretty much a run-of-the-mill high school basketball team during the 1946-1947 season—until they caught fire in the tournament.

Then the Panthers charged through the opposition, all the way to the state tournament in Columbus before falling in the state semifinals.

"You know it was kind of ironic,” Ashtabula’s senior star, Ramon (“Ray”) Peet once said about Ashtabula’s tournament run that year. "When I was a junior, I played on what may have been Mr. (Bob) Ball's best team. We went 19-1 and then went out and got beat in our first tournament game to Bedford.”

Only two Ashtabula County teams, boys or girls, have ever made the trip to the Final Four: the 1946–1947 Ashtabula team in Class A and the 1949–1950 Geneva squad in Class B. Coincidentally, Peet of Ashtabula and Dale Arkenburg of Geneva, both players on those unique teams, were first cousins.

Basketball was a different game in 1946. There was no three-point shot. Dunking was unheard of, and even the jump shot was still new. Gyms were small, ceilings low, and scoring was minimal. Among area coaches, including Ashtabula’s Bob Ball, defense was the focus.

Under Ball, the Panthers averaged just 32.9 points per game that year and even less early in the season. Peet, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, led the team with 234 points, averaging 9.36 points per game (10.3 in the Lake Shore League).

"Mr. Ball would not fast-break," ACBF Hall of Famer Gene Gephart, a sophomore on the team, once said. "That's how he beat the big teams in Cleveland. On offense, we sent only two players to the boards; the other three dropped back. He was known in the state of Ohio as a defensive coach."

The Panthers were Lake Shore League champions with an 11-1 league record but went 0-6 in non-conference games. “We played the good Erie teams and Cleveland Heights,” Gephart said. “We dominated the Lake Shore League and Ramon was a big part of that.”

In the tournament, Ashtabula defeated Conneaut, Euclid Shore, Shaw, Cleveland Heights (avenging an earlier loss), Barberton, and Cuyahoga Falls to reach the state semifinals. There, they fell to Middletown, 36-31, despite leading halfway through the fourth quarter.

Key players on the team included Ben Klepac (center), Delbert Devaughn, Tom Fish, Bob Halgas, Joe DeChurch, Richard Nelson, Wilbert Jordan, and sophomore Gephart.

Peet notched his best game on Feb. 7, 1947, with 20 points against Willoughby. He earned MVP of the Lake Shore League, first team on the Lake Shore District team, and was named to the all-state tournament first team.

Peet was a multi-sport athlete — a quarterback in football, a third baseman and pitcher in baseball, and a state-qualifier in discus for track.

"He was what they call a natural athlete," said his younger brother Averill Peet. “He was a floor manager like Bob Cousy. He played every position and never backed down, even playing with pneumonia in the state tournament.”

Peet worked at Reliance Electric for 36 years after high school and retired in 1991. He passed away in 2000.

"It was a great honor to represent the students and administration of Ashtabula High School," Peet once said. "Mr. Ball was the greatest high school coach Ashtabula or this county ever saw."

Gephart, later a teacher, coach, and principal in Ashtabula, called Ball a second father. “I could shoot. I was a good outside shooter. Plus, I could play defense. And I was the fastest guy in school even then.”

Gephart scored 10 points in the regional championship to help the Panthers reach Columbus. He went on to lead the team in 1947-48, guiding Ashtabula to another LSL title.

A member of both the Ashtabula County Touchdown Club and ACBF Halls of Fame, Gephart died in 2016.

1950 Geneva Eagles – State Semifinal Team